Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

1845-1853.] A DISCOURSE IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. 245

the ancient Gregorian chanting which I have heard, swelling
out and dying away, in the aisles of Santa Maria del Fiore at
Florence, and in other churches of the Old World; a music
of which some one well said, when hearing the objection that
it had no time, and could not be counted off by bars: "Of
course there is no time in it, for it is not the music of time,
but of eternity."
It was the summer of 1848. Congress sat on and on, in
the terrible heat at Washington, until at length the adjournment released those weary men and gave them a breathingspell. With what eagerness my father hastened to his summer quarters at East Hampton may be imagined. The season
was one of unusual interest to him in more ways than one.
It was at that time that his eldest son, having completed the
course at Columbia College, in the city of New York, was
graduated from that venerable institution by the President,
Nathaniel F. Moore, one of the most accomplished scholars
and gentlemen that ever filled that post. The commencement exercises were held in a dismal and ugly Methodist
meeting-house in Greene Street, near Grand, wherein were
gathered many of the elite of the day; and strange was the
contrast between the dingy edifice and the radiant hues of
the beauty and fashion which then, perhaps for the first and
last time, lit up its dust and dimness. It fell to my lot, by
the rule of the college, to deliver the Greek salutatory-an
honor which brought care with it, as most honors do; yet I
found a certain satisfaction on that occasion in describing to
the audience, in a tongue to them unknown, the absurdity of
their appearance as they sat listening, with an air of interest
and an affectation of intelligence, to a discourse of which it
was impossible for one of them to gather the purport. Professor Charles Anthon, the official critic of the Greek and
Latin oratory, smiled grimly as he read my manuscript, but
kindly permitted me to give it as it stood, quite sure that
few, if any, of the audience would be the wiser.
Among the companions of that summer at East Hampton